When, therefore, the poet gives to the master of the house, as a piece of dumb shew, this desire for brushing, (a habit which had become with us a second nature,) the meaning and effect of the action and its tendency, are at once apparent; for while he threatens to sweep everything from all flat surfaces, everybody tries to hinder him, and to pacify him, till finally he throws himself exhausted on a seat.
"What has happened?" all exclaim. "Is she sick? Is any one dead?" "Read! read!" cries D'Orville, "there it lies on the ground." The despatch is picked up; they read it, and exclaim: She comes not!
The great terror had prepared them for a greater;—but she was well-nothing had happened to her! no one of the family was hurt; hope pointed still to the evening.
André, who in the meanwhile had kept on with his music, came running up at last, consoling and seeking consolation. Pastor Ewald and his wife likewise came in quite characteristically, disappointed and yet reasonable, sorry for the disappointment and yet quietly accepting all for the best. Everything now is at sixes and sevens, until the calm and exemplary uncle Bernard finally approaches, expecting a good breakfast and a comfortable dinner; and he is the only one who sees the matter from the right point of view. He, by reasonable speeches, sets all to rights, just as in the Greek tragedy a god manages with a few words to clear up the perplexities of the greatest heroes.
Dashed off "currente calamo," it was yet late at night before I had finished it and given it to a messenger with instructions to deliver it the next morning in Offenbach, precisely at ten o'clock.
Next day when I awoke, it was one of the brightest mornings possible, and, I set off just in time to arrive at Offenbach, as I purposed, precisely at noon.
I was received with the strangest charivari of salutations; the interrupted feast was scarcely mentioned; they scolded and rated me, because I had taken them off so well. The domestics were contented with being introduced on the same stage with their superiors; only the children, those most decided and indomitable realists, obstinately insisted that they had not talked so and so, that everything in fact went quite differently from the way in which it there stood written. I appeased them by some foretastes of the supper-table, and they loved me as much as ever. A cheerful dinner-party, with some though not all of our intended festivities, put us in the mood of receiving Lili with less splendor, but perhaps the more affectionately. She came, and was welcomed by cheerful, nay, merry faces, surprised to find that her staying away had not marred all our cheerfulness. They told her everything, they laid the whole thing before her, and she, in her dear sweet way, thanked me as only she could thank.
It required no remarkable acuteness to perceive, that her absence from the festival in her honor was not accidental, but had been caused by gossiping about the intimacy between us. However, this had not the slightest influence either on our sentiments or our behavior.
Intimacy with Lili.
At this season of the year there never failed to be a varied throng of visitors from the city. Frequently I did not join the company until late in the evening, when I found her apparently sympathizing; and since I commonly appeared only for a few hours, I was glad of an opportunity to be useful to her in any way, by attending to or undertaking some commission, whether trifling or not, in her behalf. And indeed this service is the most delightful which a man can enter upon, as the old romances of chivalry contrive how to intimate in their obscure, but powerful manner. That she ruled over me, was not to be concealed, and this pride she might well allow herself; for in this contest the victor and the vanquished both triumph, and enjoy an equal glory.